Local military contractors have stake in growing popularity of drones

Amid industry jitters over the potential for huge defense-budget cuts in the months and years ahead, there is at least one area of military technology that may fly above the funding fray: unmanned aerial systems, better known as drones.

Although controversial because of their ties to the CIA and their suspected role in civilian deaths in places like Pakistan, these high-tech drones have proven useful enough during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to create a sustained demand, industry officials say.

Central Florida's largest military contractors have landed some key unmanned-aerial-system contracts that could prove a bonanza if the drone industry takes off as expected, both within military and civilian aviation.

"That is the next big thing in defense technology," said Wayne Plucker, a defense expert for the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. "It's just taking some time for the unmanned systems to mature as a technology."

One major drone program — Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Global Hawk — was canceled in President Obama's proposed defense budget for fiscal 2013, but funds for other unmanned systems fared very well.

Hundreds of companies worldwide are working on various pieces of the unmanned-systems puzzle, including remote-control navigation, stealth design, high-powered cameras, video-data equipment, and laser-based weaponry, according to the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a Washington-based trade group.

Locally,Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Orlando operations are crafting systems for some of the best-known drones in the U.S. arsenal, company officials say.

Lockheed Missiles & Fire Control Orlando is working with Northrop Grumman Corp. to make remote-control systems that allow Apache helicopter crews to operate Gray Eagle drones. Lockheed's Hellfire missile operation builds the primary weapon used by the Reaper and other drones.

Lockheed's Orlando-based Global Training & Logistics unit says it is producing simulators and other training systems for drone programs. Among them are the Raven, a hand-launched "mini-drone" used by infantry for combat surveillance, and K-MAX, a drone cargo helicopter already used by the Marine Corps in Afghanistan.

Melbourne-basedHarris Corp., already a prominent maker of communications systems for conventional military gear, has already captured a strong share of the emerging market for unmanned systems, too, company officials say. From on-board data links and radios to ground-station technology, Harris produces equipment for nearly 10 different programs, including the well-known Predator B drone.

"You can't talk about this whole area without talking about Harris," said Plucker, the Frost & Sullivan analyst. "They are one of the important players, and they understand this market very well."

Drone technology has been a growth area in the U.S. defense budget for the past decade. Spending totaled nearly $6 billion in fiscal 2010, a 40-fold increase from 2002, according to the Congressional Research Service. Next year's Pentagon budget calls for nearly $6.5 billion in outlays for unmanned systems — a figure that is expected to nearly double over the next 10 years.

Historic drone successes have fueled the Pentagon's appetite for the technology. During last year's mission to kill Osama bin Laden, a stealth drone captured surveillance video critical to the mission; it also enabled President Obama and other officials to witness the raid in real time. Precision strikes by armed drones have killed other top Al Qaeda leaders and have been credited with crippling the terrorist organization.

"With these kinds of systems, the military can send machines into combat and often avoid the loss of our troops' lives," said Roger Handberg, an aerospace expert and professor of political science at the University of Central Florida. "We are much more casualty-averse now, unlike say 20 or 30 years ago. We really want to minimize the exposure of our troops to deadly harm when possible."

If there is anything that could slow the military's march into the Drone Age, it may be the controversy that has erupted over the secretive U.S. missions, led by the Central Intelligence Agency, that have allegedly killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Obama administration has denied such "collateral damage," putting the number of civilians killed at a small fraction of that total. But recent work by the ProPublica investigative project and other news-media outlets has tracked reports of civilian deaths back to 2004, raising questions about the administration's assertions. Among other findings, ProPublica reported that there have been more than 260 drone strikes during the Obama administration, a sixfold increase from the total during the presidency ofGeorge W. Bush.